The Forbidden Trail

"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.

"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you remember, and the crop is wonderful."

"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've nothing to say," groaned Ernest.

"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."

Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state of mind for easy going Ernest.

The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.

He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.

As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily. The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.

The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a tarantula.

Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes. No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat snake bites.